Third Robert A. Welch Fellowship Awarded to Wei Tang

Wei Tang, Ph.D., of the Laboratory of Translational Genomics (LTG), has been chosen to receive the third Robert A. Welch Fellowship. Dr. Tang joined LTG as a postdoctoral fellow in 2009. Under the guidance of Ludmila Prokunina-Olsson, Ph.D. (LTG), Dr. Tang is focusing his research on the fine-mapping of susceptibility loci from genome-wide association studies. One of his ongoing projects is to fine-map the regions containing JAZF1 and UGTA1, which harbor prostate and bladder cancer susceptibility loci, respectively. In addition, Dr. Tang applies next-generation sequencing methods to analyze DNA, RNA-seq (transcriptome sequencing), and ChIP-seq (chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing) to detect single nucleotide polymorphisms, splicing forms, and novel transcripts that might be associated with cancer.

Dr. Tang earned his Ph.D. at the Bio-X Center of Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China. Under the mentorship of Center Director Dr. Lin He, Dr. Tang focused his research on the genetics of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and other complex diseases.

The Robert A. Welch Fellowship is a competitive postdoctoral award within DCEG that supports mentored research in molecular epidemiology with special emphasis on the application of emerging genomic technology. The fellowship was established in honor of the late Robert A. Welch, M.S., founding Director of Operations at the NCI Core Genotyping Facility.